Saturday, October 20, 2007

South Florida - Rutgers Instant Replay Penalty

I have had a very busy week and am late getting to this, but still want to discuss instant replay in college football and in particular, the South Florida-Rutgers game. I personally like instant replay and especially like that every play is reviewed in college football. However, I have never seen a penalty be called after an official's review. I have been away from sports news this week so not sure what has been said about Thursday night's game.

Thursday night, a South Florida player was returning a fumble and appeared to fumble the ball himself. Another South Florida player picked it up and, as he was getting tackled, appeared to fumble the ball as well. Still another South Florida picked it up and carried the ball in for the TD.

A replay review was conducted to see if these were in fact fumbles or intentional fumbles. In the end, it was determined the South Florida players fumbled the balls intentionally and, therefore, called them illegal forward laterals and the TD was removed. I do not have a problem with any of this to this point.

After the official took the headset off and made the announcement regarding the forward laterals, he then threw a flag for the lateral, and the Bulls were penalized. Now, this is where I have the problem, and maybe I do not know the rules as well as I think I do. I have never seen a replay review result in a penalty. I would imagine that a holding penalty could be called on every play if they reviewed it.

I agree that the fumbles were intentional and the proper call is that they were forward laterals. However, was the official acting within the rules of instant replay when he threw the flag afterwards?

1 comment
:

I would have a problem if they called a 'hold' or something like that. I have no problem determining if ball movement constituted a lateral or not. To me that's the same as checking to see if there was a fumble or not.

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Married. Imprisoned. Deaf from all the nagging; although, optimistic about the future: I will die and all of the above will go away. Ok, I am just kidding. My wife is awesome and is my best friend, but I do have to be careful about talking about the start of football season. You see, she is a teacher and my counting down the days until football season begins triggers something that makes her think about school starting.
She loves her summer vacation as much as I love football season, so I have to be sensitive towards her, while being excited for me :) Otherwise, she will just get pissed at me for reminding her of when school starts.
2015..revision: You know, I wrote the above paragraph years ago in fun and having fun with my wife. However, I realized years ago that God had a plan when he put us together. Only he would know that I would develop a condition called Hyperadrenergic POTS Dysautonomia, and need someone to be my teammate and care-provider as we traveled this journey together.